Windfall (an unexpected thrill)

The spring issue of Windfall arrived at my house over the weekend. Imagine my delight to find "Mosier Fire" on the very next page to one of the writers I admire the most-- Portland's own Ursula LeGuin.

How cool is that?

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Salt Blessings

Who knew this river's mouth had such rough teeth?

The Cascade peaks declare themselves dangerous: sharp-edged ivory fangs against the sky. They throw shadows of fear a hundred miles long. Every winter when they claim their sacrifice of skiers and mountaineers, we shake our heads, sad but not surprised.

But who thought mud and water could be so hard?

Two hundred-plus ships have been ground between these jaws and swallowed by this throat. Here, where salt meets fresh and up meets downstream, where land is only ever a bystander. Here, where jet-stream storms torn from the womb of the Pacific kick and shriek, like every newborn, at their first taste of land.

And they say they will dredge this river, roust dozens of drowned souls from the silt and send them blowing landward like banners of brine a hundred miles long.

You may find one in your front yard, tangled in a tree like a drowning man clutching a broken mast. Don't mistake it for an unrecycled grocery bag or a half-deflated Mylar valentine. Climb up, untangle it and toss it in the air. Let it fly fearless into the arms of mountains. The drops of salt it leaves behind are blessings.

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The Lovecraft Bar, and chapbooks

Only in Portland, former and, we hope, future home of the Lovecraft Film Festival, our very own Sarnath-on-Sandy: There is now a bar and tea house dedicated to all things Lovecraft.

I'll be there April 24th, from 12 - 6 PM, as part of the monthly Love Craft Fair. I'll be selling a couple of chapbooks of Lovecraft-inspired short fiction and poems, and giving away copies of "Ideas in Abundance."

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Stripes vs. Blends

I'm nicely blended
but sometimes
I wish for stripes.
Black for my father, yellow for my mother:
mismatched eyes, brown and hazel.
Flame shapes in my hair, like a tiger's coat,
lines of pigment on my fingernails
like an Appaloosa's hooves.
Here and there a fleck of copper.

Then instead of asking
"Where are you from?" which is always code for
"I cannot figure out what race you are--"
you'd be wanting to know:
"Who did your nails?
I love your hair!"

I'll fix you a meal
of roast lamb and Hunan-style snow peas
and afterwards, we can go to the communal zikr
at the Dharma Rain Zen Center. I love my town.
I love the future.

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Where You Find It

Fire found it scrawled in a handful of grass
and wrote it on the wind
in characters of twisting smoke.
The hawk whispered it in the pigeon's ear.
I overheard it in the shouted conversation
of the surf and the rocks that broke it,
of the rocks and the surf that wore them down.
"Oh yes, I remember now,"
they told each other.
"We've found one more of the Names of God."

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Japan anthology

Pirene's Fountain is producing an anthology of response to the multiple disasters in Japan. Get your submissions in ASAP. (I got a response on "Stranded" within a couple of days: I think they're looking for a short turnaround.)

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To the Hilt

You're trapped in an alley with blackguards around you
And high-rank officials have schemed to confound you
Don't cry over milk that's already been spilt
just play it to the hilt
yes, play it to the hilt.

Your corporate scheme to gain fortune and wealth
Was crashed by a raider who worked it in stealth
It took many days for old Rome to be built
so play it to the hilt
yes, play it to the hilt.

Your budget for gaming has grown ever shorter
The pinball machine drinks down your last quarter
And the bells and the whistles all light up TILT!
so play it to the hilt
yes, play it to the hilt!

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
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Can't Get Blues

You can't get dunes where the wind doesn't blow
Can't get a river where the water don't flow
You can't get the blues where there ain't no rain
Lord, oh Lord, take me back again.

You can't get desert where the sun isn't hot
Can't see the moon where the night is not
Can't climb a hill without crossing the plain
Lord, oh Lord, let me go there again.

You can't have a tree without any roots
You got to have feet if you want to wear boots
Can't find a tear where they don't feel pain
Lord, oh Lord, take me back again.

Can't have summer if there's been no spring
Can't use a fishhook without any string
Sweet honey comes with a terrible sting
Lord, oh Lord, won't you hear me sing?

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Stranded

After the wave, they were left
gasping against the sand, silver sides
fading to gunmetal. We ran
along the beach, throwing them back
in desperate bargains: For my spouse,
my sister or brother, my beloved child
one fish, a hundred fish?
No deals were made. The lost
remained lost, the fish dead.
Even a thousand fish would not have sufficed
though we kept them alive
with the salt of our own eyes. Even a million fish
could not bring back a single soul of all those stranded
on the other side of the water.

Now we turn away from the fish markets.
It's not that those glassy eyes
reproach us: fish are kinder than that.
It's the feel of salt slime sliding
under our fingertips. It's the smell
of dead sea life, like chains of seaweed
rank and dripping, binding us to memory
like Andromeda to her rock. We
are stranded forever
on the other side of that moment,
that wall of water.

--for Big Tent's prompt: Stuck.
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Windfall

Happy to announce that "Mosier Fire" (which first appeared here as "In the Kingdom of Wind" will appear in the spring issue of Windfall.

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Yesterday's Rain

Oh God, here comes that storm again. It's always the same one: just as the sun each evening slips beneath the western horizon, travels underground, and reappears in the east, so rainstorms move contrary. West to east, then dive into the earth and return invisibly to the salt womb of the Pacific, to bring us yesterday's rain again.

The world's a smaller place than you think. Ariel threw a girdle round it in no more than forty minutes. But his incessant bragging about this astrodynamic prowess inflamed poor Caliban to thoughts of revenge. The sad monster's felonious plans came to nothing-- he was left on the island while the others sailed away.

It's March 12, 1997. Two thousand years before today, divine Julius stalked the streets of Rome, his vision hazed by approaching fits and his ears ringing with the cries of a soothsayer who warned him against the approaching Ides. And the same rain was falling on him.

It's March 15, 2011 and my shirt is soaked with Caesar's blood and Caliban's tears. Yesterday's rain dissolves me and washes me away. Tomorrow I may fall on the unquenchable fires of Sendai or on the fragile swollen snowpacks of the Midwest that teeter over the Red River's tributaries like stillborn floods.

Or this storm may wash me back, past forsaken Caliban and dying Caesar and the first fat drops that splattered on the gopher-wood planks as Noah drove in the final nails. The storm may return me to the face of the dark waters that were before the first Word.

There was rain before there was light.

--a word salad poem
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To Make Violet Perfume

Purge yourself of evil intentions.
Eat meat and wear only leather, so plants will think
you are a carnivore. Don't use scented soap.
Violets will flee from odor-predators.

Do not rely on your sense of smell.
The odor of violets deadens the nose--
you can detect it only once.

Follow the flight of the Setaceous Hebrew Character
in egg-laying season. It will guide you
through the kabbalistic maze
of its intimate relationship with this plant,
a labyrinth you perceive as enchanted forest.

Should you find a clump
of flowers, deep or pale purple
don't look too hard at them-- violets
will suck rhodopsin from your retina
leaving you dark-blind.

Ignore the blossoms: they are only fit
for rabbit food. Dig up the roots
and you will find delicate nodules just the shade
of half-bleached petals. That
is the source of the fragrance:
hidden, disappearing,
blinding, numbing
essence of shy.

--image couretsy of Magpie Tales
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The Ballad of "Long-Odds" Luke

Let me tell you my story and show you my hand
I'm Long-Odds Luke, I'm good luck in a can
I'm the one that the online casinos all banned
And just so you know what I've got
I'm a poker-bot.

I'll handle a joker as smooth as a jack
Go highball or lowball, play red or black
I live on a chip, but the bug in your stack
is just what I really am not
I'm a poker-bot.

I always play safe, but don't call me a nit
I just want my share when it comes to a split
And out by the rail is not where I sit
I stay where the action is hot
I'm a poker-bot.

They're hunting me down, it's a long drawn-out chase
They've caught all the other bots, now I'm the case
And the brick-mortar players think they have the ace
in the hole that will pick up the pot
Kill the poker-bot!

When you're holding a wheel-hand, I am the nut
I'm the rock in the river, the shot to the gut
The window-card's open if the door-card is shut
And the rules can't keep me off the spot
I'm a poker-bot.

Various poker terms used in this song are defined here.
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Mornings

It seems I've become a morning person. How did that ever happen? I blame the working life: for most of the last ten years, I've been arriving at work at 7:30 AM. Since I generally ride the bus (almost exclusively, for the last few years), that means getting up at 6:30 most days.

In assembling a manuscript for Able Muse, I've noticed a really quite astonishing number of morning poems: so many that they ended up getting their own section, roughly a quarter of the length of the proposed book. Poems about early morning dreams, about waking up, washing my face, walking to the bus stop or from the bus stop to my office.

It's usually quiet that early in the morning. I'm fresh, my mind wiped clean of yesterday's concerns by sleep, but sometimes tinted by fading dreams. I get a first look at the day's weather, often very different from yesterday's. This time of the year, if it's not too heavily overcast, there's often a sunrise to look at. So it's not too surprising that I wind up writing aubades...

Forgot to mention also that my second guest post was up at Write Anything.

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Illuminations: Smashwords edition

Free.
I had to drop an image or two, as the original file was too big...
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47 Haiku

My newest Smashword, available for free here.
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Jellyfish Morning

Dawn wipes fog away from the sky
like a cat cleaning her newborns. Smears and smudges
cling against the hills where the sun's warm tongue
has yet to reach.

I am rising through mist like
a jellyfish in a column of Plexiglas, surrounded
by the curious gazes of the vertebral.
Interface quivers above me,
fog-skin rippling under the tension of a soft breeze.

I will drown in the sky. I will fill my head
with clear air. I will let the sun
lick my skin and rasp away dead cells, shed hair
and the crusts at the corners
of my soul's eyes.

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